The Problem We All Live With, Norman Rockwell, 1964
Ruby Bridges: An Inspiring Story
I watched Disney's "Ruby Bridges" yesterday based on the historical event that surrounded Ruby Bridges’ as the first African American child to attend an all-white school in the South after the Federal Government made desegregation law. She attended William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. It's an older movie (1998) but it never fails to move me. It's a powerful story that clearly shows how a 6 year old girl is able to overcome her persecutors with grace and dignity by putting into practice the principles of her and her family’s faith in Jesus.
Each day Ruby was escorted to school by 4 U.S. Marshalls to make sure she arrived safely. After getting out of the car, they had to pass through a gauntlet of angry parents who screamed vicious threats, and cruel words at her as they walked up the steps to school. The U.S. Marshalls always encouraged Ruby to keep moving forward and to not look back. At one point in the movie she is seen turning around to face the crowd. We can see her lips moving, but can't hear her over the noise. When asked about it later this is the conversation she had with Dr. Robert Coles, a compassionate psychologist who worked with her:
Psych: "But, honey, I saw you talking with them. Did you finally get angry with them? Did you tell them to just leave you alone?"
Ruby: "No. I wasn't talking to them."
Psych: "But, Ruby, I was there. I saw your lips moving."
Ruby:" I wasn’t talking to them. I was praying for them.”
Psych: (pause) “Praying for them?!”
Ruby: “Yes. I pray for them every day in the car, but I forgot that day.”
Psych: “Oh. (pause) What did you pray?”
Ruby: “Please God, forgive these people because even if they say those mean things, they don’t know what they’re doing. So, You can forgive them, just like you did those folks a long time ago when they said terrible things about You.”
Later in reviewing his experience with her, the psychologist, Dr. Robert Coles, said,
And so, I learned that a family under great stress and fear could show exquisite dignity and courage because of their moral and religious values and because they had a definite purpose in what they were trying to accomplish. This purpose made them resilient. I couldn’t figure out the source of this resilience because I only worked with well-to-do children who had nothing to work hard for, no reason driving them to accomplish anything. So, now I see that the issue is not stress, but stress for what purpose? Having something to believe in protected Ruby from psychiatric symptoms and gave her a dignity and a strength that is utterly remarkable.
This idea of living with purpose coincides with a word of exhortation that was shared by Nathaneal Buus a godly man who teaches a small house church called Tucson Fellowship, in a message entitled: Thinking in Terms of Concepts Rather Than Events. He articulates things so well that I’ll just cut some excerpts here and share them with you. If you’d like to read it in its entirety, click on this link: http://www.tucsonfellowship.com/6-6-11.html
Most people look at the events of their lives, at best, with concepts as a back drop. The event is in the forefront and maybe after they have looked across the event, they might see some concept in the background. Paul flipped it around, he viewed events through the lens of concepts… and they look different.
The event of being beaten and mocked by the guards is a cause for hate and anger. The concept that those same guards are made in God’s image but they are lost and they are sinners who now have a chance to hear the good news of Jesus Christ is a cause for love and rejoicing.
The event of facing a possible execution is a cause of great fear.
The concept that to die is gain is a cause of great strength and peace.
Thinking conceptually not only changes our response to the unforeseen events in our lives but it can also adjust our approach to the planned events.
Thinking conceptually reframes your approach to life so that you act deliberately not just reactionary.
You are no longer boxing the air or running without aim. You move with purpose. You do not simply move from one event to the next event, you view each event as an opportunity to hit your target.
For Paul, to die was gain, but to live was Christ. He had a specific concept which governed his response to all the day to day events of his life. Namely, “I do all things for the sake of the gospel.” Paul knew his calling and he lived his life in that context. Every encounter, every event was an opportunity to share the gospel. If he met a man on the road, that wasn’t just an event of meeting a man on a road it was an opportunity. He didn’t look at the events of his life as events, but as platforms to apply conceptual truths.
Learning to view life this way changes your attitude and approach to everything.
When You wake up in the morning, you sit down to breakfast and instead of viewing it as an event where you put food in your body, you view it as your first opportunity of the day to talk to your kids, to encourage them, and to show them you love them.
After watching Ruby Bridges, I might add, “when you wake up in the morning and walk through a gauntlet of people hurling vile epithets and cruel threats, instead of viewing it as an event of persecution, you view it instead as an opportunity to pray for your enemies, and trust your God to walk with you through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, carving a path for other people like you to walk behind”.
Many times as I watched the mother in this story encouraging her child to place her fears at Jesus’ feet, to remember that she’s loved by God and to pray for these people who were being so cruel, I wondered if I could be that brave. It would be so easy to try to step in and try to control and protect and shield, rather than to encourage my child to transfer her dependency to God for strength, comfort from her fears, love for her enemies, and courage to walk “the gauntlet” each morning, knowing that there was a greater purpose for this pain and struggle; a purpose that went beyond the moment to a future they could not see or taste.
I am still ruminating on all these thoughts, but as I watched Ruby Bridges it was a living example of a family who lived their lives conceptually and with purpose. It stirred a longing in me to be able to raise my children, and live our lives in such way that causes others to try and discern as Dr. Coles did to find our “source of resilience”, and after close observation be able to identify that we were living with a definite purpose that was driven by our values… an overflow of a life of faith.
So moms out there, be encouraged. What we do matters. All those mundane moments of our day can be filled with purpose if we look at them through a conceptual lens. Let us pray with the psalmist, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90: 12 ESV). Let us remember as we walk the gauntlet with the enemy hurling vile epithets (“failure, incompetent, unworthy”), that “since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith…” Hebrews 12:1-2 (NASB)
